Moving Right Along--Doo Doo Doo. Doo Doo Doo.

So there it is. Done and gone. I am all moved in, thanks to a lovely bunch of people that I would squeeze like a pimple (but much more lovingly) if they'd just let me and stop acting like I have cooties.

Surprisingly, the move went without a hitch. The night before, I made the mistake of reading my new Fangoria mag before I went to bed. There were pictures from this new movie coming out:

If only I could find a better picture of the creatures and their razor sharp fangs, you would understand why I kept waking up to every little noise that night.

I managed to live through the night though and got up early Saturday morning to drag my ass leerily to the Uhaul place. I was expecting a lot of hassle, but I was done in about 5 minutes. We all trekked out to my Mayfield apartment and loaded it all up.

I nabbed someone from the management office and she came over to look things over before I left. Had I known that she wouldn't open the fridge, the oven, etc.--that literally she would just stand in the living room and look around and ok it--I wouldn't have worked so hard trying to clean the place up. Ah well.

We returned to Tremont where we started the unload. Everything went without a kink, despite the occasional whine and grimace, until we resigned ourselves to the fact that there was NO way the couch was gonna make it up through the hallway.

Because I have angels for friends (and buff angels at that), we managed to pull the huge-ass couch up the side of the house and onto my balcony. This was amazing and impressive--two folks manning the ropes, 2 folks getting it started on its way up, and then two of us pulling it over the edge of the balcony without falling off. Needless to say, I was ridiculously impressed.

After that, everyone was completely and totally whipped. Understandably.

And yet, my lovely friends dragged their asses back to Adam's place where they gave me a bit of housewarming/birthday loving by throwing together a fantastically delicious lunch. This consisted of a variety of finger foods (cheese, triskets, etc.), desserts (cookies, brownies), some fantastic homemade black-bean dip and homemade tortillas (courtesy of the awesome Pattie), and Adam's awesome chili. Throw in a variety of Great Lakes Brewing Co. beers, and it was a killer way to end a strenuous afternoon.

Unfortunately my apartment didn't manage to unpack itself while I was gone--I had high hopes, but despite it being an awesome apartment, it apparently isn't magical. So I spent all of Saturday and Sunday unpacking.

*BUT*

*BUT*

!!!*BUT*!!!

I am now officially unpacked. Other than the ridiculous amount of boxes wedged in my bathroom hallway, everything's in its right place and I am a happy lady.

So, Pattie, Adam, Eric, and G, I salute you with a mighty pimple-squeezing hug for all your help this weekend. Ain't nothing better than friends like you all. =)

Dammit.

Randomversary

Yesterday, we both realized that we sorta don't have an anniversary day. This is relatively easy to explain: I had been broken up with my ex- for a while and was still in the process of getting through that; he was busy dealing with the turmoil of untying the knot and all the legalities involved with that. And we'd been friends for a while, so it was sort of a blurry and unclear slip from friendship into "something more" with no one moment that shouted "This is the instant you became something more, the instant that should be celebrated henceforth and forever."

We had a first kiss--I talked straight through it, caught so off-guard that I didn't even realize it was happening and never even thought to kiss back until five minutes later.

We had a first fumblingly intimate moment.

We had a first shag.

We had a first moment I felt comfortable enough to crash over his place, a first moment that our toothbrushes found a place in the other person's home.

We had a lot of firsts.

But neither of us remember dates or times.

And maybe this is a good thing.

I've always thought that the idea of Valentine's Day was kind of silly, not simply because it is a Hallmark-invented holiday, but because I always found myself wondering, why is February 14th "THE" day to show the ones we love THAT we love? Why must it be premeditated, and why must we be told to do so by some social force? Why don't we just unravel this holiday into random and unexpected professions of love throughout the year?

The same could be said for anniversaries. Why do we decide that this one day is the day in which we will reflect upon our relationship, that we will openly share our appreciation of it with the other person, and that is symbolic of our love for one another?

Shouldn't EVERY day be this day? And if not every day, then shouldn't such reflection, such grasping at love, not be premeditated?

Solution:

Because we realized that we are in fact anniversary-less, we've decided that we are going to celebrate a "Randomversary" instead. Instead of the Xth day of Xth month being our anniversary henceforth and forevermore, our anniversary is gonna be born out of randomness, just like our relationship and our love for each other. In fact, to keep it random and to keep things fresh and full of surprise, we will in fact have TWO randomversaries each year--when it moves us to do so, each of us will decide to offer up a day of celebration in honor of the love and friendship we share.

This will put a little bit of surprise back into the relationship, will put a bit more spontaneity into our celebrating. If I decide that tomorrow is our randomversary, then so it is. Perhaps I will surprise him with a bottle of wine and a night full of shagging so explicit that it can't even be touched with a ten-foot pole here (either that, or maybe just dinner at a nice restaurant ; ). And maybe in June, he will decide it is high time for our randomversary as well and surprise me last minute with a weekend chock full of excitement.

It will be a surprise, it will be spontaneous, it will be ever-changing, it will be when it moves us. It will be all the things that a relationship should be. It will keep us on our toes and appreciating each other.

Rilo Kiley

The Day I Sorta Liked Robert Pinsky

I have an age-old grudge with Robert Pinsky. Not for any reason solely specific to him (I actually always admired him a wee bit for instigating the "Favorite Poem Project" which is a beautiful and admirable thing). Moreso in a generalized kinda way that is shared with most (if not all) of the recent poet laureates. His poetry bores me, as a general rule. And I just think putting a crown on a poet's head for being "the" poet of the year is kinda silly, especially since it usually moreso crowns someone whose poetry is whitewashed enough to be palatable for general consumption by the population. Edginess and uniqueness usually don't play too big a part here.

Needless to say, I was a bit surprised when I actually found my heart warming up to Robert Pinsky during his introduction to his poetry reading this past Thursday at JCU. George Bilgere gave him a lengthy introduction, rattling off many of the awards he's collected over the years. But when he got up on stage, he spoke for a few minutes about how the awards really mean nothing (undercutting his own poet laureateship very nicely), that the true laurel around a poet's neck is not when critics and scholars and whatnot deem his poems "amazing works" but when some regular old Joe Shmoe connects with it in a way that makes his heart blossom. A bit cheesey, yes, but also very modest and insightful (and a slight bit edgy for a poet laureate).

As a general rule, Pinsky's poetry doesn't do a thing for me. I find it snoozable and dull, in much the same way that I find most of Billy Collin's stuff too. I think both of them are RIDICULOUSLY overhyped. However, I must admit that I got the heebeejeebees during one Pinsky poem Thursday night, "Shirt," particularly during this passage:

The infamous blaze

At the Triangle Factory in nineteen-eleven.One hundred and forty-six died in the flamesOn the ninth floor, no hydrants, no fire escapes--

The witness in a building across the streetWho watched how a young man helped a girl to stepUp to the windowsill, then held her out

Away from the masonry wall and let her drop.And then another. As if he were helping them upTo enter a streetcar, and not eternity.

A third before he dropped her put her armsAround his neck and kissed him. Then he heldHer into space, and dropped her. Almost at once

He stepped up to the sill himself, his jacket flaredAnd fluttered up from his shirt as he came down,Air filling up the legs of his gray trousers--

Like Hart Crane's Bedlamite, "shrill shirt ballooning."

* * * *

I was also intrigued by his discussion of a work of art as "an event," that every time a person sits down and reads a poem or novel or whatever, it is an event and occurrence solely its own, that the poem becomes new again. Interesting, I thought. I like this idea--that the writer has a certain holiness, but that the reader is the one who breathes life into a poem again.

But then he started to talk too much, enjoying his voice and his musings a bit more than I woulda liked, swinging back and forth leisurely in the hammock of his own wit. And then I remembered why I never was a big fan.

But for a minute or two (and the feeling still nests in my chest a bit), I kinda dug him.

"Untrusting I court you. WaveringI seek your face, I readThat Crusoe's knifeReeked of you, that to defile youThe soldier makes the rabbi spit on the torah."

Hee hee

Nazi Skinhead

So I'm hanging out with my friend Traci for the first time in about a year last night. We're fighting to talk against the Star Wars movie that her husband is watching full-blast on their large television (complete with English subtitles--I have no clue why) and the incessant sneezing of her 14-month old daughter Brooklyn who somehow just managed to accidentally jam her nose into the Star War's dvd collector case and cannot stop the chain reaction for nearly 5 minutes straight. Over all this ruckus, we manage to yammer on a little bit about what's been going on with us in the last year, the usual catch-up kinda conversation. We sink back easily into the warm comfort of making fun of one another as well. This turns into a brief reminiscence about college and the likes. Which makes Traci suddenly start laughing and recollect upon the first time she met me.

"I didn't really know what to make of you at first--I thought there was no way I was gonna like you. I just thought you were this weird kinda hippie." She pauses lengthily and thoughtfully. "Either that or a Nazi skinhead racist." She says this totally seriously. Dead seriously.

I am apalled.

I sputter a little at her, never having heard this story before. I've heard many a bizarre recollection of first encounters with me, most of which DO unfortunately entail a "hippie" description thrown in there somewhere (though I must admit, one actually consisted of a description of me as "like a model"). But never, NEVER, has someone's description gone this route.

She starts laughing. As do I after suddenly recalling my garb and haircut back in the day--at one point I had my hair buzzed down to a clean 3/4 inch by my reluctant hairdresser; and I wore pretty frequently my trusty pair of black jungle boots. This thankfully explains it.

Thank god she was smart enough not to get caught up on this first impression though. And thank god the conversation drifts along on a better and more peaceful wave, with her remarking happily that I am the only person she keeps in touch with still from college.